Automatic Assessment of Problem Behavior in Individuals with Developmental Disabilities

Severe behavior problems of children with developmental disabilities often require intervention by specialists. These specialists rely on direct observation of the behavior, usually in a controlled clinical environment. In this paper, we present a technique for using on-body accelerometers to assist in automated classification of problem behavior during such direct observation. Using simulated data of episodes of severe behavior acted out by trained specialists, we demonstrate how machine learning techniques can be used to segment relevant behavioral episodes from a continuous sensor stream and to classify them into distinct categories of severe behavior (aggression, disruption, and self-injury). We further validate our approach by demonstrating it produces no false positives when applied to a publicly accessible dataset of activities of daily living. Finally, we show promising classification results when our sensing and analysis system is applied to data from a real assessment session conducted with a child exhibiting problem behaviors.